Everyone at work speaks to me like shit.
At work, the majority of my team and wider colleagues speak down to me. There’s a huge lack of respect towards me. They over explain, they tell me “I’m learning”, and then proceed to offer unsolicited advice about how to do my job. They talk over me and demand I do things, and when I resist they become more forceful in their tone. They sometimes actually take over my work and make decisions they have no place to be making. They even introduced me to external professionals as “our little (insert job title). It’s beyond patronising.
I’m not a trainee, I started as a trainee and people never let me forget that. But I’ve been there 3 years, and I’m more qualified and knowledgeable than many in my team. I’m extremely competent at my job, my manger confirms this and really likes me, and I even won an award and a bonus at an annual employee conference last year for my work as an outstanding employee who goes above and beyond. Only 9 people won awards out of almost 4,000 employees who could have been nominated. I’m just saying this so it’s clear I’m not some incompetent fool.
I can’t understand why people treat me this way. I thought it might be because I can be quite self-deprecating, but today I was wondering if it’s my appearance.
Most people I work with are 40-55 years old. I am late 30s, but look, dress and act a lot younger because I’m immature and don’t have my personal life together. When I tell people my age, 9 times out of 10 they’re very surprised and say they thought I was in my mid twenties. So I was wondering if it’s like a perceived age discrimination thing, even though it’s imaginary because I’m older. What do think it going on here? Has any actual real young person on here faced this by older colleagues where there’s just a huge lack of respect?
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Hmm this is a tough one. It’s hard to say without knowing the company a bit better but if they haven’t been any new trainees since you then maybe just haven’t moved on from you being in that phase.
There is a model of communication that I find really helpful for situations like this. It’s the Parent-Adult-Child model.
Worth having a read about it, but essentially if someone acts like a parent in a relationship the other person is very strongly invited to act like a child. Also, if someone acts like a child, the other person is likely to act like a parent. These can become vicious cycles. It sounds like they are acting like a parent pushing you into a child role which you’re finding really uncomfortable.
The way to break this is to react as an adult and as if they are an adult.
For example, if they explain something simple to you (parent behaviour) the child behaviour reaction would be to get annoyed, anxious, stay quiet and accept it. If you also flipped into parent mode…
You could explain something simple to them and return to make them feel like they’re being treated like a child, but that wouldn’t be too constructive, though probably a bit satisfying.
Instead to shift the dynamic you can take an adult behaviour and treat them as adult, with something like
"Thank you for taking the time to explain that. I know your time is valuable. It’s actually something that I already know about, as I have a lot of experience in this area. But if there is anything I need help with, I will let you know. Thank you!"
If you do this consistently, they will start to look very stupid and become very uncomfortable if they continue to talk to you as a child. I hope this helps. X
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